A study related to the investigation of multiple intelligence profiles of gifted and talented children across Turkey

Abstract

Focusing on the dominant intelligences of individuals from their early ages will be beneficial for them and the society in terms of improving their talents. When this situation is considered for gifted and talented children, we believe that there is a need for detailed analysis for Turkey beginning from the early years of children. Hence, in this study, it is aimed to investigate the multiple intelligence domains of Turkish gifted and talented students studying in science and art centres (SACs) across the country via a survey research. This paper presents the results gained from 12 SACs. Those SACs were selected according to the socio-economic development index (SEDI) of Turkey as declared by Ministry of Development (MD) which considered the country to consist of 6 regions. Two SACs from each of those six regions were included in the study. Thus, the sample consisted of 390 middle school 5th grade students. A Likert type multiple intelligence test which included 80 items related to eight domains of multiple intelligence was utilized as data collection instrument (Demirel, Başbay & Erdem, 2006: 155). Descriptive statistics and non-parametric statistics tests were conducted in order to analyze the study data. The results indicated various differences among multiple intelligence scores of the participants.